{"id":463855,"date":"2026-02-09T14:26:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:26:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/463855\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T14:26:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T14:26:07","slug":"kylian-mbappe-can-match-cristiano-ronaldo-at-real-madrid-arbeloa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/463855\/","title":{"rendered":"Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 can match Cristiano Ronaldo at Real Madrid – Arbeloa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Coach \u00c1lvaro Arbeloa said Kylian Mbapp\u00e9<\/a> “has the qualities” to match the “out of this world” Cristiano Ronaldo<\/a>‘s impact at Real Madrid<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The star forward scored his 38th goal of the season in the team’s 2-0 win at Valencia<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Left-back \u00c1lvaro Carreras<\/a> opened the scoring in the 65th minute at Mestalla on Sunday, before Mbapp\u00e9 scored a second in added time to give Madrid a victory which keeps them one point behind leaders Barcelona<\/a> at the top of LaLiga.<\/p>\n

Mbapp\u00e9 — who has now scored 23 league goals in this second campaign in Spain<\/a>, with another 13 in the Champions League, and two in the Copa del Rey<\/a> — still has a long way to go to match Ronaldo, who is Madrid’s all-time top scorer with 450 goals over nine seasons.<\/p>\n

“We thought we wouldn’t see anything like Cristiano, but [Mbapp\u00e9] is on track,” Arbeloa told Real Madrid TV after Sunday’s game, before going into more detail in his post-match news conference.<\/p>\n

Kylian Mbappe scored Real Madrid’s second goal against Valencia.\u00a0Aitor Alcalde\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

“Right now he’s the best player in the world for sure,” Arbeloa added.<\/p>\n

“What Cristiano did looked like something out of this world and impossible to match, as if nobody could come close. Kylian has a long path, because Cris was here for many years. But Kylian has the qualities to follow his path. You never know. If anyone can do it, it’s Kylian.”<\/p>\n

Mbapp\u00e9 has now scored 81 goals in all competitions since joining Madrid in the summer of 2024, although he is yet to win a major trophy with the club.<\/p>\n

Arbeloa also discussed why he’d selected youngster David Jim\u00e9nez<\/a> at right-back at Mestalla, with more experienced options Dani Carvajal<\/a> and Trent Alexander-Arnold<\/a> on the bench.<\/p>\n

Trent Alexander-Arnold continued his return from injury on Sunday.\u00a0Antonio Villalba\/Real Madrid via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Alexander-Arnold was introduced in the 76th minute, while Carvajal remained an unused substitute, as both continue their recoveries from injury.<\/p>\n

“The fact that academy kids can play in a game like this and contribute is great news,” Arbeloa said. “With Trent, after a long time out, we’ll be very cautious. We want [recovering players] to find their rhythm little by little. With Trent, it will be like that.”<\/p>\n

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Alexander-Arnold has played just 406 minutes in LaLiga this season — with the game against Valencia being his first appearance of 2026 — while Carvajal has featured even less.<\/p>\n

“Dani looks better in training all the time,” Arbeloa said, when asked about Carvajal. “We won’t take any risks. When we had some days off, he was working at [Madrid’s training ground] Valdebebas. I don’t have to tell you how important Dani is in the dressing room.”<\/p>\n

Arbeloa defended the team’s performance against Valencia, which saw them struggle to create chances before Carreras’ opening goal.<\/p>\n

“We know coming to Mestalla is like going to the dentist,” Arbeloa said. “We knew how difficult the game would be. It was a very serious, committed game from the players.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Coach \u00c1lvaro Arbeloa said Kylian Mbapp\u00e9 “has the qualities” to match the “out of this world” Cristiano Ronaldo‘s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":463856,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-463855","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463855","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463855"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463855\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/463856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463855"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463855"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463855"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}